clay by james joyce, analysis

Clay James Joyce

Dr Mohammed Fahmy Raiyah

James Joyce (1882-1942)

Some Other Famous Irish Writers

Oscar Wild

George Bernard Shaw

W. B. Yeats

Jonathan Swift

Samuel Beckett

Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914.

The Republic of Ireland

Dublin in the early 20th century

Halloween31 October

Halloween

Bumpkin lanterns

Barmbracks

Turnip lanterns

Trick or treat

Barmbracks

“Maria was a very, very small person indeed but

she had a very long nose and a very long chin.”

witch

The Pillar, Dublin

Ballsbridge, Dublin, 1911“From Ballsbridge to the Pillar , twenty minutes; from the Pillar to Drumcondra, twenty minutes; and twenty minutes to buy the things. She would be there before eight.”  

Tram (Dublin, 1904)

“The tram  was full and she had to sit on the little stool at the end of the car, facing all the people, with her toes barely touching the floor.”  

Plumcake

for Joe

Plum

Penny cakesFor the children

Game of divinatio

n

“She felt a soft wet substance with her fingers and was surprised that nobody spoke or took off her bandage.” Why?

Corkscrew

“his eyes filled up so much with tears that he could not find what he was looking for and in the end he had to ask his wife to tell him where the corkscrew was.”

People tend to escape reality and avoid facing bleak facts by focusing on trivial objects or involving themselves in petty activities.

ANALYSIS

PLOTAlmost nothing happens in the story.

The main emphasis of the story is on character, rather than plot (cf. The Cask of Amontillado).

The early paragraphs that introduce the main characters and the setting constitute the exposition.

The rising action follows, as we follow Maria in her trip in the streets of Dublin to Joe’s house.

The climax occurs when Maria chooses the clay in the parlour game. The rest of the story is the falling action.

SETTING The place is the city of Dublin. The

story begins in the Dublin by Lamplight laundry where Maria lives and works. Then, we follow Maria in her trip through the streets of Dublin, boarding the tram, to Joe’s house, where the last part of the story is set.

The time is the beginning of the twentieth century.

CHARCTERSMARIA

Maria is the central character in the story. She is a middle-aged woman who lives and works in a charitable institution for women. Maria seems almost willfully unaware of the more brutal aspects of day-to-day life. She tries to forget her difficult life by focusing on the small details of daily living. The story abounds in examples of Maria’s preoccupation with these trivial details. Maria’s concentration on the positive aspects of life and the cheerful sides of her existence are a means of compensation for the emotional vacuum and the emptiness of her real life. In other words, Maria creates her own world that allows her to make for the deprivation and losses of her life.

Maria’s reputation as a peacemaker attests to her ability to evade the larger issues of life and to avoid conflicts in order to make her life more acceptable and palatable. She likes to please all people around her. Consequently, she is equally loved by the women in the laundry and by people outside. She is warmly welcomed by Joe and his family and the children. For Maria, everything demands organization and precision. She fastidiously supervises the distribution of food portions at the charity, she prides herself on her neat and tidy body, and she repeatedly divides up the minutes she will schedule for traveling and shopping for the evening at Joe’s. Maria intends for her attention to minute details to create order and clarity in her life, but such rigidity actually results in frustration and emotional reactions that are out of proportion to the situation at hand. When she realizes that she has misplaced the plum cake, she is so furious with herself and her carelessness that she almost cries. 

Mari’s choice of clay during the game signifies, not her impending death, but her emotional death. On the other hand, her choice of the prayer book, which stands for her entering a nunnery, symbolizes her further retreat from real life.

POINT OF VIEWlimited third-person point-of-view. The

narrator lets us see the world through the eyes and thinking of Maria. The reader is permitted to go inside the mind of Maria and no other character.

THEMESDeath-in-life:

The story shows how people can live an incomplete life in which their concentration on the small trivial details prevents them from seeing the bleak reality of their existence and makes them seem dead. Consequently, they live in a state between life and death.

Death:Death is a prominent theme in the story. The title

word of the story is a symbol of death. Maria picks the saucer that contains clay, a portent of imminent death. Joe, aware of Maria’s old age, is moved to tears.

SYMBOLISMClay:

Clay in the traditional game of divination is a symbol of death. On the other hand, clay is also a symbol of Maria’s death-in-life state. Maria’s life that is focused on small details, avoiding facing the reality of life, is a kind of metaphorical death.

Corkscrew:The corkscrew that Joe looks for when he

is full of tears upon hearing Maria’s song is a symbol of the way people avoid facing painful reality by focusing on small trivial objects.